Drug Free program to get federal funds

Grant targets underage drinking, substance abuse.

Grant targets underage drinking, substance abuse.

September 12, 2008|Tribune Staff Report

SOUTH BEND -- A nonprofit program in St. Joseph County will receive $125,000 in federal money a year for the next five years to support programs that fight substance abuse among youths. The Drug Free Community Council learned recently that it won the grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The council will use the money to help local agencies that already are running substance abuse programs, council Director Beth Baker says. It will do that by training staff at those agencies, offering after-school programs and offering parental education to parents in those programs, she says. It will target programs dealing with underage drinking and prescription drug abuse among youths, she says. Some of these supports had been in effect when the council received the grant from 2001 to 2006 -- at $100,000 per year. But the supports went away when the council didn't win the competitive grant the past two years, Baker says. The agencies are part of the Drug Free Community Council's coalition, and the council is part of the Healthy Communities Initiative of St. Joseph County. The grant, which begins Oct. 1 and adds on to a roughly $200,000 annual budget, will enable the program to hire an extra full-time employee, Baker says. The council is among three organizations in Indiana (and 199 nationwide) to receive the grant from the Drug Free Communities Support Program. Baker says the program is innovative because the dollars can be used for "supporting and promoting collaborative efforts and community partnerships." She says it gets at public policy and youths' environment, "rather than addressing substance abuse with narrow interventions."